Time Zones
by broadwaypants
Summary: Rock of Ages; Franz is in Hamburg and Regina is in LA. There's a nine hour time difference between them, but that doesn't stop Franz from calling her every day to say goodnight. The only problem is that he's telling her goodnight at five in the morning!


_So I actually saw _Rock of Ages_. It was fantastic. I fell in love with Wesley's Franz after his first scene, so I knew I just HAD to write some pointless fluff between him and Regina. They're my favorites._

_Please note that I do not type phonetically. Fill in the German accent yourself by listening to _Hit Me With Your Best Shot_ while reading. No, really, listen to it. It's a great song._

* * *

Regina learned very quickly that Franz was a very affectionate person.

She became accustomed to a kiss on each cheek every time they said goodbye. It was normal for her to find little love notes stuffed in every possible corner of her apartment whenever she returned from taking Franz to the airport. She was used to having his arms wrapped around her at any possible opportunity, even when it was incredibly inconvenient. And holding hands… don't even get her started on holding hands.

So it was no surprise when, at five in the morning on their first day apart, her phone rang and she picked up to hear Franz's cheerful voice on the other end.

The first time this happened she thought it cute. It was his first day back in Germany, after all, so he had probably forgotten all about the time difference. But it surprised her when he told her goodnight, wished her pleasant dreams, and hung up after saying a very tearful, "I love you!"

After a week of these two-minute phone conversations at five in the morning, she realized what was going on. Franz, who was never one to remember details, had forgotten which way to count the nine hour time difference. So while he thought he was calling her right as she went to sleep, he was actually calling her in the early morning.

However, their phone conversations were short enough as it was – Franz was still in the beginning stages of his confectionary store and she was still trying to get her old job back, so neither had much money to spare on a huge phone bill – and the last thing she wanted to clog two minutes with was explaining to him that he was calling her at the wrong time.

These phone calls kept coming, and Regina found that she minded less and less as time went on. It really was cute how Franz called her at the same time every day, regardless of how busy he was. She eventually altered her sleeping schedule so Franz's call became her alarm clock, rising at five each morning and falling asleep in the early evening.

Franz liked sending her letters too, writing with elegant cursive penmanship she hadn't thought humanly possible. It made her chickenscratch look even more illegible, but that didn't dissuade her from writing back. Franz often told her that receiving her letters made him feel like a little boy on Christmas morning and never mentioned her bad handwriting.

When Franz did not call one morning, Regina slept soundly until eight, when she awoke with a start, looked at the clock, swore loudly, and seized the phone. Dialing Franz's number, she drummed her fingers on her knee, convinced she had slept through his phone call.

It surprised her, then, when she got his answering machine. The message it relayed was in German, of course, but she assumed that it said something along the lines of, "I can't come to the phone, so leave a message." So she did just that, apologizing for missing his call but leaving out the part about sleeping through it. That would just confuse him.

She set about getting ready to go to work – she had recently gotten her job at the Mayor's office back – but paused when there was a knock on her door. She wasn't late and wasn't expecting any visitors, so she assumed it was a neighbor who needed a favor or someone trying to sell her something.

Instead she opened the door to reveal a very tired looking Franz. She blinked a couple times, convinced her eyes were playing tricks on her, but decided that they were not when Franz's face lit up and he scooped her up into his arms, spinning her in a circle and kissing her.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, giggling as he set her back down.

"I wanted to surprise you," she could understand every word through that heavy German accent that had once been somewhat of an annoyance. Now she thought it was the cutest thing she had ever heard.

"How long are you here for?" she launched herself at him, holding him tightly and pressing her cheek against his shoulder.

"A week," he said proudly. "Papa told me I should come and visit my friends here. He says I have been moping." Regina chuckled, breath tickling his neck, and he squirmed a little in her tight hold.

"I was not moping," he said seriously as she took a step back to look at him. This made her laugh again; she could just picture Franz sulking over a vat of molten chocolate, forgetting that he had to stir it and looking around for the source of the acrid smell when it started to burn.

"Anything you say," her laugh was still dancing on her lips as she spoke.

"But, Regina, tell me something," Franz frowned suddenly, holding her hands and looking at her earnestly. "I thought my plane was supposed to arrive very late in the night. But it is," he checked his watch, realized that his was set to the time back in Hamburg, and instead drew her wrist closer to look at it, "only half past eight. Where did I go wrong in my math?"

"Oh Franz," Regina giggled again, "You've been messing up the time zones since you left. You didn't realize that you've been calling me at five in the morning my time, did you?"

The horror-struck look on his face told her that he had not.

"Don't worry about it," she said quickly, knowing that either a very long apology or a meltdown was coming. "I didn't mind. It was nice having you as my alarm clock in the morning."

Deciding to change the subject, Regina said, "You must be tired. Why don't you take a nap and I'll come wake you up on my break?" Franz opened his mouth to protest, but Regina cut him off. "And I don't want to hear any of that 'I'm not tired' crap, got it?"

Franz nodded dumbly, still holding onto both of her hands and looking at her sadly. His normally rosy cheeks were only a very pale pink, and he looked crestfallen. Regina just led him into her bedroom, telling him to make himself at home and that she would be back around noon.

However, Franz did the exact opposite. He refused to sleep in Regina's bed and, after she had left, chose to curl up on her small sofa instead. When he woke up a mere hour later, he put on an apron and set about doing her dishes and even wiped down the entire bathroom.

When Regina returned, she found Franz sitting at her kitchen table, sheets of paper laid out n front of him and his hair sticking up from the number of times he had run his hands through it. He kept looking at his watch then at her clock, muttering to himself and writing something down on his sheet of paper.

"Franz, what are you doing?"

He jumped, obviously not having heard her come in. It took him a second to recover, but then he smiled broadly and handed her one of the sheets of paper. It contained a very detailed chart, showing multiple times of day in two columns.

"What is it?" she asked, eyes flicking over the sheet and then up to look at his beaming face.

"It's a chart, silly," he leaned down slightly to kiss her nose, "that has the different hours of the day for each of our cities. This way I will know exactly what time it is where you are and you will not have to worry about me calling so early in the morning!"

Regina just laughed, touched that Franz had made such an effort in order to rectify his blunder. As he watched, she crossed over to the fridge and stuck one of the charts up, smiling at him as she did so. His smile widened – if that was even possible – and he reached out to take her hands.

"Just promise me one thing," Regina said as Franz pulled her onto his lap, arms wrapped protectively around her waist. "Keep being my alarm clock, okay?"

"Of course," Franz nodded his head vigorously. "Except this time I will call you at seven-thirty instead of five." He was obviously very proud of himself for remembering that Regina had always woken up at seven thirty before he started calling her at five.

"Sounds good to me," Regina settled herself more comfortably in Franz's lap, resting her head on his shoulder. She would never tell Franz, but his mistake had made five in the morning her favorite time of day. As she snuggled a little closer to him, she realized that seven thirty-two was about to become the worst time of day, for that was when Franz would say goodbye.


End file.
